This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Have you ever considred joining this project, now that dust has settled down I am thinking about it myself. Thanks Kanatonian 19:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I am half way around the world and I cant get over this, yes remove user elalan as discussed User Kanatonian, i cant sign in properly because I am using a foreign language computer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kanatonian ( talk • contribs) 16:37, January 22, 2007
Of course, my intention as a mediator is to bring both sides to the table. I would have preferred to use the existing 'table'. But apparently, that's not an option. So I'm fine with creating a new project. However, I will invite reasonable people from the other side. What should we call the new project? How about "LankaMediation"? — Sebastian 20:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
BTW, one of the first things we could discuss is User:SebastianHelm/Sri Lanka#Recommended guideline for editing Sri Lanka conflict related articles. — Sebastian 21:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I would be somewhat interested in such a group, however I have been wishing for a while now to divert my attention to other parts of Wikipedia where fair editing wouldn't be quickly and beligerently deleted for no particular reason besides alledged 'POV pushing', I did however think of starting a new Sri Lanka Coverage WikiProject that would bar known vandals, puppeteers etc etc whether they be pro Government or Pro LTTE. Please draw up a draft for your said project and I will get back to you about it.-- Sharz 06:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
If you can start a new project, I'm happy to join with that. As Kerr avon said [1], not even my dog will step there. -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ Walkie-talkie 21:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
First of all sorry I took so long to respond but the new semester just started and I really needed to get some stuff done so I took a self imposed leave of absence from Wikipedia for about a week.
About joining the NCSLC, I really don't think thats going to happen. From its incepetion, when the creator of the project chose to name it against the recommendations of the administrator who helped them set it up, it was way too contrvorsial. I think it will be a lot better to wipe the slate clean and form a new project.
But if we do start a new project, I would like to know what you intend to do in it? Is it something like colectively editing selected articles? While it will be great if we really can talk and resolve disputes, I'm sorry but I really don't see it happening. Articles like Velupillai Prabhakaran, Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lankan Civil War and Tamilnet saw numerous discussions on the talk pages, but they (you know who I mean) just don't seem to agree to reason. With these articles, it took an admin to warn users like Elalan, Lankaupdate and the others that they were getting out of line and faced been blocked if they continueed to edit the same way, to make them see reason (Lankaupdate though did not and was eventually indef blocked). In the end the admin who helped prvent Elalan adding nonsense to the Mahinda Rajapakse article seemed to have quit Wikipedia a few days after the dispute. I have a feeling it had something to do with that dispute. And I don't think he has returned.
Even the LTTE article mediation, I really doubt we could have come to an agreement about it if Elalan wasn't banned from Wikipedia. The same intro as is now was proposed several times in the article talk page and he and some others just didn't agree with it.
But I guess I am been quite pessimistic here, and if we are able to get more nutral editors like yourself and Nina (don't remember her last name :( invloved we may be able to make some progress. Think you can do that? Otherwise, I've found arguing with the pro LTTE lobby is a complete waste of my time.
Also just to make you aware, we did form Wikiproject Sri Lanka, although since most of us are studing and don't have much time, we really only use it to let new editors know that there are other Sri Lankans editing Wikiepdia and encouraging them to edit further and helping them out. -- snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 20:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
BTW this is probably the longest talk page message I've ever left. Oh and sorry about your computer, and I was just wondering whether you you tried a data recovery program to get back your lost files? As long as your hard drive is works you should be able to. Good luck with that anyway. --
snowolfD4(
talk /
@ ) 20:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
This section contains discussions that correspond to sections in the project page; it is arranged by the project page's outline.
How about if we named it "WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation"? I just got this idea when I created the Sri Lanka Reconciliation Barnstar. — Sebastian 21:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Old version of table:
Source | Explicit attribution | Note |
---|---|---|
tamilnation.org | The LTTE-friendly tamilnation.org reports that ... | |
defense.lk | The GoSL-friendly defense.lk reports that ... |
I would like to propose the following new goal:
This is the reason why I wrote Cool editing. In the future, I am thinking that we could mediate cases like Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-20 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam together as a group. — Sebastian 04:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I just created this section from two statements I picked up on this talk page. Please feel free to add your own there, or discuss existing ones below. — Sebastian 18:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Sebastian, I'd like to join the project. Please do add me to the member list if you are happy with that . Is there any space for me? I haven't stepped in empty handed, have a look at this. -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ Walkie-talkie 06:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I’m applying for membership. Kanatonian 20:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I would like to apply for membership. Kerr avon 00:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
This vote is closed and can be archived next time. Kerr has been listed in the member list.
I’m applying for membership. -- Sharz 05:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your interest, and for your contributions in this project so far. While I invited you some time ago, I now have a concern. In our recent interactions, you weren’t quite as open as I would like our members to be.
I therefore would prefer to wait a week to see if you can improve on this. (If you like, we can stay in contact via e-mail in the meantime and I will assist you with any questions you may have, or give you some feedback.) — Sebastian 13:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I am re-admitting my application for membership, per discussion with Kanatonian. -- Sharz 10:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)-- Sharz 10:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
No opposition after more than 48 hours, which means: Welcome, Sharz! Since Kanatonian actively lobbied for Sharz, I think we can assume that he just forgot his support vote, and I would like to give him the honor of entering Sharz into the member list. — Sebastian 19:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi, and a big thank you to Kanatonian for the warm welcome. As someone interested in the situation in Sri Lanka, but with no political/cultural/religious ties to the country or indeed anyone in it, I would very much like to join your group. As you can see I am also new to WP, and my editing skills aren't what they could have been, but I do feel that I can make a good effort substantively, and would like to contribute to the clearly well considered goals of this group. Thus, with a caveat that I will probably need quite a bit of support, I would like to apply for membership Neuralolive 06:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
No objections within 48 hours, which means we have a new member! Welcome, Neuralolive! — Sebastian 17:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello. The invitation to this project came just at the right time. Only yesterday I thought about how to find people who might help with the Sri Lanka article, because I find the work really depressing. Not engaging in edit wars takes a lot of self-restraint. So does not quitting editing Wikipedia. Although I'm not too optimistic, I hope a group like this might help reduce the frustration. I'd like to cooperate with you. Cheers, Krankman 08:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
No objections within 48 hours, which means the new member is accepted - welcome! — Sebastian 17:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been invited to participate in this group several times by e-mail (probably to my old username, Osgoodelawyer). I have had some conflicts in the past with editors on Sri Lanka-related pages, and have tried to use logic and appeal to the rules, not emotion, to put my views forward. Since I just found myself having to clean up some POV hidden as POV-removal, I feel I'm ready to join. Lexicon (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I would like to be a member.
Hi, I would like to join the Project. I would like to contribute towards article related to civil conflict of Sri Lanka. added May 30
I would like to join the project ,You can see my contributions and decide. Harlowraman 22:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi guys, I'm fairly new but contributed quite a bit to the Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War article before i joined wikipedia as well. I would like to join this project. Thanks.
The more I think about it in reality this forum or club’s primary (but unstated) goal is to function as a place to acclimatize emotionally charged new Sri Lanka centric Wikipedians about following Wikipedia rules. Most who have been around 6 months or are no longer overtly partisan or overtly disruptive even if they harbor malicious feelings about each other. That is a good equilibrium to achieve. All what this forum can do is to point such emotionally charged editors that hey look what we have achieved why don’t you try it ? If we are perssitant, they will and may be become members too.
[4].Thanks Kanatonian 15:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Politics rule added themself to the member list [5], apparently without reading the instruction to add applications here. I just removed the entry so it can be handled appropriately. — Sebastian 04:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
This is my withdrawal from membership of the SLR, for the following reasons.
If you respect my decision, you will not email and/or leave messages on my talk page about my reason to withdraw, the Sri Lanka articles, are in an essence, completely time consuming, and ridicously hard to maintain, I would far rather spend time on articles that I am more interested in and where my edits won't be torn apart after I turn from them for a second. -- Sharz 23:41, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Seven weeks passed since Thusiyan's application. Back then, two members opposed his membership because he had only two days of experience; this concern should be moot by now. I therefore would like to start the application again. — Sebastian 21:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC) Support — Sebastian 21:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
[...] User:Shunpiker needs a Barnstar for resolving the Nagerkovil school bombing article Kanatonian 20:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Nina deserves a barnstar also for resolving number of issues on the massacre series pages. More to come late Kanatonian 14:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
He has been very active in trying to maintain the neutrality of Special Task Force article and has also intervened many times trying to coach Sri lanka specific editors in following wiki policies. Some of his contributions are [12] [13] [14] Kanatonian 16:07, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
For his tireless work realted resolving conflict realted articles about Sri lanka. The examples are numerous Kanatonian 16:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Will the terminology "Pro" as in "Pro-LTTE", "Pro-government" be confirming with wikipedia's neutrality principles? Kerr avon 13:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
The following was a reply to Kerr avon's comment about 13:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC). I'm moving it into it's own section to keep the wording question separate from the classification problems. — Sebastian 03:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm yes, maybe the sources should simply be qualified as "unreliable" because of their reporting practises, which might involve un-bridled hostility to a certain party. — Sharz — continues after insertion below
With sites like defence.lk it's easy to qualify it as the government site, so thus it has inherent bias in inherent interests, but with TamilNet and TamilNation, they are not officially an arm of the Tamil Tigers, so thus no inherent bias can be proven, however, reading their articles and looking at the providence of their sources makes them biased. All very complicated, we should probably just stick with Sebastian's original proposal. -- Sharz 00:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
[...] my question is, how will be qualify disputed sources, for example, The Asian Tribune. Some would see them as reliable, whereas I find their reporting so lacking that if it was not for freedom of the press it would simply be slander what they produce. -- Sharz 00:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I added two different banners to the project and the talk page. Do all members agree with the wording for each? — Sebastian 23:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I started this project because NCSLC did not achieve its goal of neutrality. So much so, that many good editors would have nothing to do with it. Let's sympathetically look at what went wrong so we can learn from it.
Let's assume good faith and assume that NCSLC started out in a true attempt to achieve neutral coverage. That went awry when they accepted disruptive users. From then on it was a downward spiral: Many reasonable users, even to this day, do not want to join NCSLC because they said they had a problem with that member account. Since NCSLC has no way to remove a disruptive member, I had to start this new project.
This problem is even more severe for us, because we specifically have a goal of a diverse membership. (By this goal, I fervently promise, and I'm sure you will too, that we will never exlude anyone because of their opinion on Sri Lanka related issues.) Naturally, this diversity makes it even more likely that there will be conflict among our members.
The only solution I see for this is to decide now what we want to do if that situation occurs. Let's not put our heads in the sand - let's face the problem now! — Sebastian 04:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The following text was written before I introduced the problem it is supposed to solve. I'm leaving the wording, although it's an awkward transition.
This is an unpleasant topic, and there's no immediate reason to think about it now. But that's the kind of thing you need to think about in advance, rather than when it happens. What if we have a member that disrupts the project? One thing that could easily happen is if the member blocks all or most decisions. Should we in this case deviate from the rule that everything is decided by consensus? Should the other members be able to kick a member out under certain conditions? What if there are two disrupting members? (I'm thinking way far ahead, that might happen when we will have a dozen or more members.) — Sebastian 05:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed that I only wrote "consensus" for voting on barnstars. I had wanted to use consensus also for other votes, namely on new members and new guidelines. Would that be OK? We could say that whenever there is no "Oppose" within 24 hours, it counts as accepted. — Sebastian 05:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I now realized that I proposed two different periods: 24 hours above, 48 hours for the source discussion. What do others think? Maybe we could say it's 48 hours unless there's a good reason to speedy it? (I'd first like to discuss before we vote on this) — Sebastian 21:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, I propose that, when we have new member applications, we offer them to hold off all issue votes on which they would like to vote until 24 hours after the membership votes are closed.
(Reason: I want to create an incentive to not drag out membership votes for such tactical reasons. The opposite case would of course be that someone delays his or her application for tactical reasons, but I'm not worried about that: It would backfire because if people felt that were the case they simply could vote against him/her.) — Sebastian 21:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
My goal is truly to work for reconciliation; it would be a bitter irony if two projects that state the goals of neutrality and reconciliation should not be able to find together. Much as I love this project (especially its name), I am open to all paths that lead to my goal, but only, of course, if all members agree (per Voting by consensus).
What Kanatonian wrote above made me aware that that there is a good point for keeping both projects: NCSLC is open to anyone, and SLR is for members who have a proven track record of constructive work. There is a need for both.
At least, I want to have very friendly relations with our sister project. Therefore, I left messages on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject NCSLC#Is anyone still listening, or should I create a new project? and User talk:Sudharsansn#Sister projects. So far, nobody has replied. Depending on the reply, I would like us to honestly consider our options. We have several of them, such as
If you have any other ideas, please let me know. — Sebastian 21:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Here are some problems with the current articles and such:
As requested:
the page "Terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE" under the 2007 bus explosion insident the writer has written as if that that was the truth and has given a refrence to the reuters (which is fine). However, on that article it just says that the Srilankan forces has said that they suspect this to be an attack by the tigers. This is NOT the NPOV that wiki should share. I want to ask you to take a look at it and tell me what to do. I believe this should be taken off but I don't want to go in a edit war against the two major contributers to the articles. We should take immediate action about this problem. I will take a more indept look at the article now to see if there is any other accutations like this. Thanks and sorry for disturbing you. I just want to keep this whole part of wiki clean...
Central Bank bombing: No citations given. This is written by a single POV and does not give any credible citations. Does not belong in wiki unless refrenced to a credible source. Please fix
Gomarankadawala massacre: Found reference but it seems that the article does not have a NPOV.
More dirt!
Under the 2006 heading:
March 01, 2006: Suspected but not proven so cannot belong in the article because refrence doesn not assume.
April 23, 2006 : This is based on a article which is on wikipedia but is missing sitations. Infact there is no citation on that article and it is again a violation of wiki. Nothing shows that this is true... furthermore doesn not involve Tamil Tigers.
May 27, 2006: No mention in the refrence about Tamil Tigers hence not NPVO to assume it was them
May 29, 2006: Refrence is not a NPOV article it seems. Not wiki stranders but could let it slide by.
September 18, 2006 Are you kidding me ? refrence from defence.lk…. What a joke!
I am slowly working my way around all the sri lanka related sections. Please do not mistake me of trying to sabotage these artiles or of supporting any one group. I am just trying to clean wiki from rubbish [Things that do not meet wiki standards]. Watchdogb 21:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your post. I now realize that you had specific questions to different articles rather than general questions. Sorry, that was my mistake; I should have directed you to the article talk pages. But anyway, let me quickly reply here. (When you do any of the changes that have been proposed here, please add the reason for the change and "per [[WT:SLR#Credible problems and NPOV probles]]" in the edit summary so people know why you're doing them. If you encounter any trouble, let us know.)
I hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions! We certainly don't mistake you for trying to sabotage anything - you are clearly trying to bring up things that do not meet our standards. Thank you for Esperanzathat! — Sebastian 01:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I wanted to create a more neutral article [17] from the above two it seem's to be ok with Netmonger and neutral editors others but now there is a problem. I will take it to mediation and I know I will win because I am creating an NPOV article from two POV articles but meanwhile I want to give this organization to try to resolve it for the time being. Thanks Kanatonian 18:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
OK I like an idea of creating together this unsavory side of our conflict both the government and the LTTE has indulged in it. Any takers for discussing thsi here. See details [ [19]] Kanatonian
Lahiru et al,
Thank you for the welcome in my talk page. I look forward to reading about what you guys do. This seems to be a reflective group. Good luck with the initiative.
I only hope that this group does not take upon itself the role to edit the input of everyone who makes changes in a Sri Lanka specific article. I have not made any edits in conflict related articles - with minor exceptions - but I tend to focus on history related issues.
Best regards-- Dipendra2007 05:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I would like to include the fact that we're bipartisan somehow. Maybe we can shorten the article related wording to compensate for it. How about the following wording: "... a collaborative, bipartisan effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the Sri Lanka Civil War."? — Sebastian 08:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC), changed 08:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC) (Deleted my discussion of the name "Civil War". Since " Sri Lankan Civil War" is the name of the article, it seems to be the preferred name at Wikipedia, so let's stick with that.)
I want to say a big "thank you" to Lahiru for archiving this page. This wasn't easy since there already were several copies of some topics in the archive, and I admit I contributed to this mess. — Sebastian 19:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Have you ever considred joining this project, now that dust has settled down I am thinking about it myself. Thanks Kanatonian 19:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I am half way around the world and I cant get over this, yes remove user elalan as discussed User Kanatonian, i cant sign in properly because I am using a foreign language computer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kanatonian ( talk • contribs) 16:37, January 22, 2007
Of course, my intention as a mediator is to bring both sides to the table. I would have preferred to use the existing 'table'. But apparently, that's not an option. So I'm fine with creating a new project. However, I will invite reasonable people from the other side. What should we call the new project? How about "LankaMediation"? — Sebastian 20:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
BTW, one of the first things we could discuss is User:SebastianHelm/Sri Lanka#Recommended guideline for editing Sri Lanka conflict related articles. — Sebastian 21:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I would be somewhat interested in such a group, however I have been wishing for a while now to divert my attention to other parts of Wikipedia where fair editing wouldn't be quickly and beligerently deleted for no particular reason besides alledged 'POV pushing', I did however think of starting a new Sri Lanka Coverage WikiProject that would bar known vandals, puppeteers etc etc whether they be pro Government or Pro LTTE. Please draw up a draft for your said project and I will get back to you about it.-- Sharz 06:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
If you can start a new project, I'm happy to join with that. As Kerr avon said [1], not even my dog will step there. -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ Walkie-talkie 21:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
First of all sorry I took so long to respond but the new semester just started and I really needed to get some stuff done so I took a self imposed leave of absence from Wikipedia for about a week.
About joining the NCSLC, I really don't think thats going to happen. From its incepetion, when the creator of the project chose to name it against the recommendations of the administrator who helped them set it up, it was way too contrvorsial. I think it will be a lot better to wipe the slate clean and form a new project.
But if we do start a new project, I would like to know what you intend to do in it? Is it something like colectively editing selected articles? While it will be great if we really can talk and resolve disputes, I'm sorry but I really don't see it happening. Articles like Velupillai Prabhakaran, Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lankan Civil War and Tamilnet saw numerous discussions on the talk pages, but they (you know who I mean) just don't seem to agree to reason. With these articles, it took an admin to warn users like Elalan, Lankaupdate and the others that they were getting out of line and faced been blocked if they continueed to edit the same way, to make them see reason (Lankaupdate though did not and was eventually indef blocked). In the end the admin who helped prvent Elalan adding nonsense to the Mahinda Rajapakse article seemed to have quit Wikipedia a few days after the dispute. I have a feeling it had something to do with that dispute. And I don't think he has returned.
Even the LTTE article mediation, I really doubt we could have come to an agreement about it if Elalan wasn't banned from Wikipedia. The same intro as is now was proposed several times in the article talk page and he and some others just didn't agree with it.
But I guess I am been quite pessimistic here, and if we are able to get more nutral editors like yourself and Nina (don't remember her last name :( invloved we may be able to make some progress. Think you can do that? Otherwise, I've found arguing with the pro LTTE lobby is a complete waste of my time.
Also just to make you aware, we did form Wikiproject Sri Lanka, although since most of us are studing and don't have much time, we really only use it to let new editors know that there are other Sri Lankans editing Wikiepdia and encouraging them to edit further and helping them out. -- snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 20:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
BTW this is probably the longest talk page message I've ever left. Oh and sorry about your computer, and I was just wondering whether you you tried a data recovery program to get back your lost files? As long as your hard drive is works you should be able to. Good luck with that anyway. --
snowolfD4(
talk /
@ ) 20:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
This section contains discussions that correspond to sections in the project page; it is arranged by the project page's outline.
How about if we named it "WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation"? I just got this idea when I created the Sri Lanka Reconciliation Barnstar. — Sebastian 21:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Old version of table:
Source | Explicit attribution | Note |
---|---|---|
tamilnation.org | The LTTE-friendly tamilnation.org reports that ... | |
defense.lk | The GoSL-friendly defense.lk reports that ... |
I would like to propose the following new goal:
This is the reason why I wrote Cool editing. In the future, I am thinking that we could mediate cases like Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-20 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam together as a group. — Sebastian 04:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I just created this section from two statements I picked up on this talk page. Please feel free to add your own there, or discuss existing ones below. — Sebastian 18:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi Sebastian, I'd like to join the project. Please do add me to the member list if you are happy with that . Is there any space for me? I haven't stepped in empty handed, have a look at this. -- ♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ Walkie-talkie 06:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I’m applying for membership. Kanatonian 20:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I would like to apply for membership. Kerr avon 00:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
This vote is closed and can be archived next time. Kerr has been listed in the member list.
I’m applying for membership. -- Sharz 05:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your interest, and for your contributions in this project so far. While I invited you some time ago, I now have a concern. In our recent interactions, you weren’t quite as open as I would like our members to be.
I therefore would prefer to wait a week to see if you can improve on this. (If you like, we can stay in contact via e-mail in the meantime and I will assist you with any questions you may have, or give you some feedback.) — Sebastian 13:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I am re-admitting my application for membership, per discussion with Kanatonian. -- Sharz 10:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)-- Sharz 10:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
No opposition after more than 48 hours, which means: Welcome, Sharz! Since Kanatonian actively lobbied for Sharz, I think we can assume that he just forgot his support vote, and I would like to give him the honor of entering Sharz into the member list. — Sebastian 19:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi, and a big thank you to Kanatonian for the warm welcome. As someone interested in the situation in Sri Lanka, but with no political/cultural/religious ties to the country or indeed anyone in it, I would very much like to join your group. As you can see I am also new to WP, and my editing skills aren't what they could have been, but I do feel that I can make a good effort substantively, and would like to contribute to the clearly well considered goals of this group. Thus, with a caveat that I will probably need quite a bit of support, I would like to apply for membership Neuralolive 06:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
No objections within 48 hours, which means we have a new member! Welcome, Neuralolive! — Sebastian 17:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello. The invitation to this project came just at the right time. Only yesterday I thought about how to find people who might help with the Sri Lanka article, because I find the work really depressing. Not engaging in edit wars takes a lot of self-restraint. So does not quitting editing Wikipedia. Although I'm not too optimistic, I hope a group like this might help reduce the frustration. I'd like to cooperate with you. Cheers, Krankman 08:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
No objections within 48 hours, which means the new member is accepted - welcome! — Sebastian 17:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been invited to participate in this group several times by e-mail (probably to my old username, Osgoodelawyer). I have had some conflicts in the past with editors on Sri Lanka-related pages, and have tried to use logic and appeal to the rules, not emotion, to put my views forward. Since I just found myself having to clean up some POV hidden as POV-removal, I feel I'm ready to join. Lexicon (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I would like to be a member.
Hi, I would like to join the Project. I would like to contribute towards article related to civil conflict of Sri Lanka. added May 30
I would like to join the project ,You can see my contributions and decide. Harlowraman 22:56, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi guys, I'm fairly new but contributed quite a bit to the Notable assassinations of the Sri Lankan Civil War article before i joined wikipedia as well. I would like to join this project. Thanks.
The more I think about it in reality this forum or club’s primary (but unstated) goal is to function as a place to acclimatize emotionally charged new Sri Lanka centric Wikipedians about following Wikipedia rules. Most who have been around 6 months or are no longer overtly partisan or overtly disruptive even if they harbor malicious feelings about each other. That is a good equilibrium to achieve. All what this forum can do is to point such emotionally charged editors that hey look what we have achieved why don’t you try it ? If we are perssitant, they will and may be become members too.
[4].Thanks Kanatonian 15:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Politics rule added themself to the member list [5], apparently without reading the instruction to add applications here. I just removed the entry so it can be handled appropriately. — Sebastian 04:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
This is my withdrawal from membership of the SLR, for the following reasons.
If you respect my decision, you will not email and/or leave messages on my talk page about my reason to withdraw, the Sri Lanka articles, are in an essence, completely time consuming, and ridicously hard to maintain, I would far rather spend time on articles that I am more interested in and where my edits won't be torn apart after I turn from them for a second. -- Sharz 23:41, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Seven weeks passed since Thusiyan's application. Back then, two members opposed his membership because he had only two days of experience; this concern should be moot by now. I therefore would like to start the application again. — Sebastian 21:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC) Support — Sebastian 21:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
[...] User:Shunpiker needs a Barnstar for resolving the Nagerkovil school bombing article Kanatonian 20:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Nina deserves a barnstar also for resolving number of issues on the massacre series pages. More to come late Kanatonian 14:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
He has been very active in trying to maintain the neutrality of Special Task Force article and has also intervened many times trying to coach Sri lanka specific editors in following wiki policies. Some of his contributions are [12] [13] [14] Kanatonian 16:07, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
For his tireless work realted resolving conflict realted articles about Sri lanka. The examples are numerous Kanatonian 16:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Will the terminology "Pro" as in "Pro-LTTE", "Pro-government" be confirming with wikipedia's neutrality principles? Kerr avon 13:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
The following was a reply to Kerr avon's comment about 13:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC). I'm moving it into it's own section to keep the wording question separate from the classification problems. — Sebastian 03:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm yes, maybe the sources should simply be qualified as "unreliable" because of their reporting practises, which might involve un-bridled hostility to a certain party. — Sharz — continues after insertion below
With sites like defence.lk it's easy to qualify it as the government site, so thus it has inherent bias in inherent interests, but with TamilNet and TamilNation, they are not officially an arm of the Tamil Tigers, so thus no inherent bias can be proven, however, reading their articles and looking at the providence of their sources makes them biased. All very complicated, we should probably just stick with Sebastian's original proposal. -- Sharz 00:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
[...] my question is, how will be qualify disputed sources, for example, The Asian Tribune. Some would see them as reliable, whereas I find their reporting so lacking that if it was not for freedom of the press it would simply be slander what they produce. -- Sharz 00:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I added two different banners to the project and the talk page. Do all members agree with the wording for each? — Sebastian 23:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I started this project because NCSLC did not achieve its goal of neutrality. So much so, that many good editors would have nothing to do with it. Let's sympathetically look at what went wrong so we can learn from it.
Let's assume good faith and assume that NCSLC started out in a true attempt to achieve neutral coverage. That went awry when they accepted disruptive users. From then on it was a downward spiral: Many reasonable users, even to this day, do not want to join NCSLC because they said they had a problem with that member account. Since NCSLC has no way to remove a disruptive member, I had to start this new project.
This problem is even more severe for us, because we specifically have a goal of a diverse membership. (By this goal, I fervently promise, and I'm sure you will too, that we will never exlude anyone because of their opinion on Sri Lanka related issues.) Naturally, this diversity makes it even more likely that there will be conflict among our members.
The only solution I see for this is to decide now what we want to do if that situation occurs. Let's not put our heads in the sand - let's face the problem now! — Sebastian 04:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The following text was written before I introduced the problem it is supposed to solve. I'm leaving the wording, although it's an awkward transition.
This is an unpleasant topic, and there's no immediate reason to think about it now. But that's the kind of thing you need to think about in advance, rather than when it happens. What if we have a member that disrupts the project? One thing that could easily happen is if the member blocks all or most decisions. Should we in this case deviate from the rule that everything is decided by consensus? Should the other members be able to kick a member out under certain conditions? What if there are two disrupting members? (I'm thinking way far ahead, that might happen when we will have a dozen or more members.) — Sebastian 05:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I just noticed that I only wrote "consensus" for voting on barnstars. I had wanted to use consensus also for other votes, namely on new members and new guidelines. Would that be OK? We could say that whenever there is no "Oppose" within 24 hours, it counts as accepted. — Sebastian 05:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I now realized that I proposed two different periods: 24 hours above, 48 hours for the source discussion. What do others think? Maybe we could say it's 48 hours unless there's a good reason to speedy it? (I'd first like to discuss before we vote on this) — Sebastian 21:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, I propose that, when we have new member applications, we offer them to hold off all issue votes on which they would like to vote until 24 hours after the membership votes are closed.
(Reason: I want to create an incentive to not drag out membership votes for such tactical reasons. The opposite case would of course be that someone delays his or her application for tactical reasons, but I'm not worried about that: It would backfire because if people felt that were the case they simply could vote against him/her.) — Sebastian 21:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
My goal is truly to work for reconciliation; it would be a bitter irony if two projects that state the goals of neutrality and reconciliation should not be able to find together. Much as I love this project (especially its name), I am open to all paths that lead to my goal, but only, of course, if all members agree (per Voting by consensus).
What Kanatonian wrote above made me aware that that there is a good point for keeping both projects: NCSLC is open to anyone, and SLR is for members who have a proven track record of constructive work. There is a need for both.
At least, I want to have very friendly relations with our sister project. Therefore, I left messages on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject NCSLC#Is anyone still listening, or should I create a new project? and User talk:Sudharsansn#Sister projects. So far, nobody has replied. Depending on the reply, I would like us to honestly consider our options. We have several of them, such as
If you have any other ideas, please let me know. — Sebastian 21:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Here are some problems with the current articles and such:
As requested:
the page "Terrorist attacks attributed to the LTTE" under the 2007 bus explosion insident the writer has written as if that that was the truth and has given a refrence to the reuters (which is fine). However, on that article it just says that the Srilankan forces has said that they suspect this to be an attack by the tigers. This is NOT the NPOV that wiki should share. I want to ask you to take a look at it and tell me what to do. I believe this should be taken off but I don't want to go in a edit war against the two major contributers to the articles. We should take immediate action about this problem. I will take a more indept look at the article now to see if there is any other accutations like this. Thanks and sorry for disturbing you. I just want to keep this whole part of wiki clean...
Central Bank bombing: No citations given. This is written by a single POV and does not give any credible citations. Does not belong in wiki unless refrenced to a credible source. Please fix
Gomarankadawala massacre: Found reference but it seems that the article does not have a NPOV.
More dirt!
Under the 2006 heading:
March 01, 2006: Suspected but not proven so cannot belong in the article because refrence doesn not assume.
April 23, 2006 : This is based on a article which is on wikipedia but is missing sitations. Infact there is no citation on that article and it is again a violation of wiki. Nothing shows that this is true... furthermore doesn not involve Tamil Tigers.
May 27, 2006: No mention in the refrence about Tamil Tigers hence not NPVO to assume it was them
May 29, 2006: Refrence is not a NPOV article it seems. Not wiki stranders but could let it slide by.
September 18, 2006 Are you kidding me ? refrence from defence.lk…. What a joke!
I am slowly working my way around all the sri lanka related sections. Please do not mistake me of trying to sabotage these artiles or of supporting any one group. I am just trying to clean wiki from rubbish [Things that do not meet wiki standards]. Watchdogb 21:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your post. I now realize that you had specific questions to different articles rather than general questions. Sorry, that was my mistake; I should have directed you to the article talk pages. But anyway, let me quickly reply here. (When you do any of the changes that have been proposed here, please add the reason for the change and "per [[WT:SLR#Credible problems and NPOV probles]]" in the edit summary so people know why you're doing them. If you encounter any trouble, let us know.)
I hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions! We certainly don't mistake you for trying to sabotage anything - you are clearly trying to bring up things that do not meet our standards. Thank you for Esperanzathat! — Sebastian 01:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I wanted to create a more neutral article [17] from the above two it seem's to be ok with Netmonger and neutral editors others but now there is a problem. I will take it to mediation and I know I will win because I am creating an NPOV article from two POV articles but meanwhile I want to give this organization to try to resolve it for the time being. Thanks Kanatonian 18:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
OK I like an idea of creating together this unsavory side of our conflict both the government and the LTTE has indulged in it. Any takers for discussing thsi here. See details [ [19]] Kanatonian
Lahiru et al,
Thank you for the welcome in my talk page. I look forward to reading about what you guys do. This seems to be a reflective group. Good luck with the initiative.
I only hope that this group does not take upon itself the role to edit the input of everyone who makes changes in a Sri Lanka specific article. I have not made any edits in conflict related articles - with minor exceptions - but I tend to focus on history related issues.
Best regards-- Dipendra2007 05:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I would like to include the fact that we're bipartisan somehow. Maybe we can shorten the article related wording to compensate for it. How about the following wording: "... a collaborative, bipartisan effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the Sri Lanka Civil War."? — Sebastian 08:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC), changed 08:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC) (Deleted my discussion of the name "Civil War". Since " Sri Lankan Civil War" is the name of the article, it seems to be the preferred name at Wikipedia, so let's stick with that.)
I want to say a big "thank you" to Lahiru for archiving this page. This wasn't easy since there already were several copies of some topics in the archive, and I admit I contributed to this mess. — Sebastian 19:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)